Lou wrote:
Platinum bars are poured from zirconia crucibles that are "double bagged" inside an alumina crucible. The heavy wall alumina bears the weight of the ZrO2 crucible containing the Pt. Zirconia looses its strength after a few heats and must be replaced fairly often. Usually you have a "starter" plug or heal of platinum that soaks up the power because most melters are 10-12 kHz and won't heat powders for crap. Same thing for gold powder--most of the heat goes into the graphite or SiC crucible and melts it by conduction! It's a different story if you put a cylinder of gold in there. When the Pt plug melts you can add the sponge platinum. I much prefer to have not melted the material but have the sponge sit upon the bulk metal and heat, that way any moisture is steamed off.
Pd is much of the same, except atmosphere control is more important as it is considerably more gassy than platinum.
It can be melted with an oxy/acetylene torch, or natural gas and oxygen. I expect that you'd have difficulty with most other methods due to the relatively high melting temperature. Hydrogen is the recommended fuel, which eliminates the risk of forming carbides.brjook said:Thanks for the post but it didn't really help me any.All i was asking is there a way to melt Pd without a hydrogen oxygen torch?
I expect your problem is more rooted in lack of BTU's than temperature. Are you using the largest tip you have at your disposal? If you are, and you can buy an even larger one (rosebud, for example), that would likely work. I melted over a troy ounces of platinum with such a tip, using natural gas and oxygen. While I'm not sure I'm right, I expect that MAPP gas has much higher potential.brjook said:I got a oxy/Map gas tourch i use to melt gold with no problem.When i try to melt the Pd all it does is swell up and make a high pitched whinning sound the more i heat it .I tried to turn down the oxygen but it wouldn't melt it then .I have some 1 inch crucibles .Could i heat the outside of the crucible and not put the flame on the Pd .Would this work?
I'm likely not a good person to ask. My experiences in selling both my platinum and palladium left me with a very bad taste in my mouth---and I had a lot of each to sell.brjook said:Also where can you sell palladium at ?
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